The Power of Writing to Right History

Published in the March/April 2015 issue of Books Make a Difference magazine.

A children’s book prompted a new day in court for a group of civil rights activists known as the Friendship Nine, half a century after they served jail time for attempting to sit at a whites-only lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Seven of the surviving Friendship Nine, all in their seventies, came to court on January 28, 2015, in dressed in their Sunday best. Circuit Court Judge John C. Hayes III, whose uncle sentenced the Friendship Nine in the original case, read each of their names, along with their offense, disposition, and sentence, and then vacated the convictions of all nine men. […]